A Special Train Journey
Is this about a train journey that was special or a journey on a special train or both? It was Mar 1990. De-induction of Indian Armed Forces from Sri Lanka had begun. I decided to stay back and come along with the last batch, just for the heck of it. There was no point coming home early unnecessarily. Coming from an active zone, it didn’t make sense. Added to it was the order that we were to travel by a special train from Madras to our permanent location, Jaipur. I had never travelled on a special train before. My troops and I were in the last passenger ship that sailed out. As we sailed out and I went and stood on the upper deck to have a look-see around and to gulp in the sea air, I was astonished to see our Naval War Ships of various sizes all around, though at great distances from, our ship in the vast sea! They were also sailing out on de-induction and were giving our ship protection in the bargain. We were sailing in a tactical formation. It was huge, the number of ships and